


The Lonely Road

by chii



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: F/M, Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-04-14
Updated: 2012-04-14
Packaged: 2017-11-03 16:02:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/383302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chii/pseuds/chii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[AU of S9] In the end, Church and the Freelancers were instrumental in winning the war, both against the Insurrectionists, and against the Covenant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lonely Road

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically all Larissa's fault. The idea got brought up-- what if Church and the Freelancers did win. So basically bouncing off of that. Instead of everything going to shit and people going insane left and right, things actually work out (kind of) and everyone has to deal with the fallout. 
> 
> lol spoilers, nothing is ever happily ever after if i'm involved. :| I also kind of buttfucked halo canon here, so just...roll....with that.

___________________ 

Prologue

___________________ 

They win, and make it out of what York realizes is their last mission with less casualties than he ever thought they’d have. It’s a surprise all on its own when he had worried about how many they would lose. None of the mission’s events really set in, though, until they’re on the ship in dead silence, until 479 flicks the intercom on.

“Uh, I’d say a last mission well-done kind of merits a “woohoo” or something, at the very least,” she comments, and gets an utterly exhausted smile from North, his head leaning against the bar securing them in their seats. 

“Woohoo,” he and York say together, and 479 doesn’t say anything else, because with CT in handcuffs in the back, knocked out, and the injuries of everyone on board, there isn’t much reason for celebration.

___________________

Chapter 1

___________________

She thinks that she’s going to go crazy if she stays there too much longer. There’s nothing to do in the maximum security prison here, nothing but four walls, the floor, and her ceiling to stare at. CT takes the pens and paper they give her and draws, or writes, or just idly scribbles to fill her time, all the way up until they take them away, replacing them with the books they allow her. She goes through the motions, waiting until they let her out to go exercise, most days. That’s the only time that she feels like she’s staying sane, running in circles around the track until she’s sweaty and red, escorted back to the showers and then to her room again, where something that passes as dinner is pushed through to her.

The world is going on outside, going past her, and she can’t help but be more frustrated as the weeks, the months drag on and she realizes that there’s nothing she can do about it. She’s stuck here, she’s not going to get out, and the only goddamn thing she can do about it is just try to keep sane.

They bring in counselors every so often, shrinks to appraise some of them and determine best practices, or options past this. They don’t answer her questions about what’s going on outside, they don’t do anything but ask her about _feelings_ and other things she has absolutely no interest in talking about.

Once they determine that she’s not a threat (she’s not sure how-- give her five seconds with any of them and she’d show them how much of a threat she is) they move her to another prison. She gets a brief look at sunlight, at the outside, and then finds herself right back with four walls and barely passable food.

One prison is just as much like the next, in her mind, but at least if she strains, leans against the metal bars and looks out, she catches sight of the sunlight in the hallway, and sometimes, that’s enough.

 

 

A year or two must have passed, she thinks-- someone mentioned a date once, but they don’t let her keep the pens and paper they give her and search her room on a nightly basis, so she’s not sure anymore.

All she knows is that now, the guards are smiling more, there are whispers of _it’s over, it’s finally over,_ there’s less activity, and one day, she gets someone standing outside of her room while she’s doing push-ups, unlocking her cell.

“You have a visitor.”

 

There aren’t that many people it could be. Her family is long gone, she didn’t have any friends-- the Director, maybe. She mulls over a progressively shorter list, all the way until she sits in the chair and crosses her legs, just looking at the clear plastic between herself and another seat, and waits.

It’s nearly ten minutes later, and she’s getting shifty, anxious, wanting to go-- this is eating into the time she gets to go exercise, she wants _out._

“Hey, is this a--” CT starts, and finds the words get jumbled, get all mixed up in her throat as she stares at the person who eases in the door, walking slowly to the chair and sitting down carefully. She can’t find another word to say, so she just stares, she just presses her hands to her chair and grips it so tightly that the plastic creaks. “What are _you_ doing here?”

“I-- just came over since I was informed that you were granted visitation rights.”

Washington is as awkward as ever, raking a hand through dark hair laced with gray, glasses on the bridge of his nose, just looking at her for a long moment as he tries to figure out what to say to her. He looks older, she notes; not the kind of old that comes with time, but the kind of older that comes with exhaustion, with fighting. There are scars she doesn’t remember seeing on his face and on his arms, and he has a brace on his wrist that she only faintly catches sight of as he sits, heavily.

“Don’t you have better things to do?” CT asks, tone sullen, leaning back in the chair, kicking her legs out against the plastic and crossing them, just looking at him evenly. She’s all prepared to give him shit the whole time, all the way up until he gives her a quiet, even look, and shrugs.

“The war’s over, Connie. I have the time.”

It feels like he’s just kicked the air out of her, as he sits there, his hands hanging loose between his legs, just waiting for her to say something in return. There’s nothing much she can even think of to say. It makes sense, though-- the guards being in better moods, how everything has been going. She’s been in here so long that she didn’t even think about what it would mean if she were still here when the war ended, because all she remembers is what happened before she ended up here.

___________________

This isn’t supposed to be how things went.

That one thought keeps running through her mind as she tries to crawl away, her ears still ringing from the blast, her leg twisted and throbbing behind her as she finally finds a pile of rubble and just melts onto it with a little gasp of pain. She’s not even sure who set the bomb off-- who was _stupid_ enough to, when they should have known that there were too many civilians in there, too much going on. Regardless of the UNSC, she’d _told_ the Insurrectionist in charge-- she’d told them it was a shit idea with the Freelancers there, she’d warned them that they were there to take down what was left of what the Director called an anti-human terrorist group.

Moving makes her vision swim, so she stops trying for a moment, listening to the ominous secondary rumbles as the wreckage settles and slowly the noises around her filter in through her helmet. She’s not sure how many it took out, but they hadn’t been expecting it, and she sure as hell hadn’t after she’d told them not to set it off.

CT makes it another few feet, crawling, before she hears something like footsteps and looks up to dust and rubble covered silver armor, and a gun leveled at her helmet.

Somehow, she’s a little pleased that Wash’s gun doesn’t waver. At least one of them took her seriously.

___________________

“You knew,” Carolina spits, gripping Wash’s shoulder just hard enough he flinches, slammed back against the wall, not fighting her on this. “You knew, and you didn’t tell a goddamn soul. You let us walk into a _death trap_ and we nearly lost half of the team!”

There’s nothing much he can say to that. He knows it’s the truth, to a point. He hadn’t known she was working with the Insurrectionists, he had only suspected. It’s why he’d let her lead their part of the mission, it’s why he hadn’t balked when she had looked like she was talking to someone else in the middle of their conversation. He couldn’t claim that it was good planning, but he knew something was coming and he’d done his best to account for it.

It’s just that Connie getting hurt that badly during it wasn’t part of the plan.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Washington finally says, and looks at the wall just past her cheek, eyes fixed there as she just stares him down, her good hand clenched in a fist.

Ultimately, she lets it go-- she doesn’t want to fight him on this and she doesn’t want to argue when what’s done is done and there’s nothing he or she can do about it. “Don’t ever do this again. You get any kind of-- of _hunch_ , of idea about something, and you tell me. Understood?”

“Ma’am,” Wash agrees evenly, and makes his way right back out of the room, heading for the infirmary. He doesn’t know what he’s expecting to find- they likely won’t let her out of their sight, not with the fact that she’d nearly gotten all of them killed, regardless of whether or not it was intentional.

It’s surprisingly empty-- North and South are both there, the latter with her arm in a sling after it’d been crushed by the remains of a building, hissing something under her breath as North smooths a hand through her hair, shaking his head in response. She won’t be able to shoot a gun for a couple weeks, not with her arm like that, but Wash can’t help but wonder if that even matters.

From the way Carolina and York had been talking, there wasn’t much more past this. The war had to be over soon- this last mission to try and take down the remaining head of Insurrectionists who had escaped years ago but were still just as dangerous was one of the final pieces. Another year or two and it had to be over, he was sure of it. Cutting the threat off before it could raise resources and do it all over again. Wash couldn’t quite say he disagreed; he’d seen the devastation that they’d caused before and he wasn’t about to allow that to happen again, either.

Regardless, just standing there a moment made him realize that Connie...wasn’t in there. He sweeps the beds with a faint frown, and then turns his attention to the other two, not even needing to open his mouth before North jerks his chin down the hall. “She got taken in there. They might not let you in.”

South barks out a laugh in response, nasty and uneven, tight with pain. “They locked her in a cell; don’t see why you’d want to go down and see the traitor anyway.”

“Thanks, North,” Wash says before he gets into an argument and makes things worse, and shoves his hands into his pockets, turning on his heel and heading out the door to where the elevator is to take him down to the temporary cells.

He should have expected it-- he’d been the one to catch her after the bomb went off, there was no surprise there that Church would have her taken away as fast as possible so the UNSC could figure out what to do with her. He doesn’t want to puzzle over the how or the why or try to make sense of any of that, though. He had suspected prior to the mission (hell, he’d suspected months ago) but there hadn’t been anything done about it because he hadn’t had any proof. He hadn’t even wanted it to be true.

Wash ducks down a hallway before the patrol sees him, and takes the elevator down, hearing the faint ding and click as it settles into place, and then heads out, already knowing where they’ll be holding her.

There aren’t any guards, there’s just the dead silence of the hall, filled faintly with scraping noises every so often as she shifts, no doubt. Wash turns the corner, and goes still, just looking at her, realizing how insulting it probably is to realize that they didn’t assign any guards down here because she’s too injured to do anything.

He opens his mouth, fully intending to say something, and then finds himself closing it again, just looking at her, not even knowing what he’s doing down there. He can’t do anything to fix this-- hell, he doesn’t want to. She did this, and she had to pay the price for it, that’s the whole reason they have those systems in place. She knew-- she had to have known what she was getting into if she were ever caught.

“Coming to gawk?” Connie asks, curled up in a corner of the cell, her bad leg stretched out in front of her, bandaged along with other minor scrapes and bruises on her skin.

There’s nothing to say, though.

Wash opens his mouth and then drags his hand over his face, shaking his head. “I’m sorry.”

Connie’s harsh, muted laughter sounds too much like a sob as he turns and heads right back out of there before someone catches him.

He doesn’t see her again for nearly three years.

___________________

The visit is just as awkward as he expects. They don’t talk about the war being over, about alien alliances and Insurrectionists, or anything like that. Instead, Wash leans in, and talks. Not about anything in particular, just about the building and what’s been going on lately and the war’s over, and the news channels say this.

It’s exactly what she expects, rebuilding, getting things back to something like normal, not that she’ll ever get to see it, though.

It’s over just as soon as it starts; Connie barely looks at him as he stands up from his plastic chair and looks down at her, pressing a hand to the plastic wall between them. It’s not the soft tone or the awkwardness she hates, it’s the fact that there’s _pity_ on his face that makes her more infuriated than anything else. She doesn’t want that.

“Just go.”

Wash obeys.

___________________

She has a hearing on Monday morning, marking four years in prison- half of the eight year sentence she was initially given. She doesn’t know what they found or what they had determined, all she knows is that going into this, she fully expects to be given the life-sentence that they had been fighting for so hard.

Her hair is longer-- her attorney had told her not to cut it back to how it was-- she needed to look harmless, she needed to do anything she could to help herself, even if it was ridiculous, in her mind.

They dress her up, neat and tidy and when she looks in the mirror when it’s all said and done, all she can think is how they’re doing just what she hates.

She looks like a kid.

___________________

It happens in a rush that's too much to take in at once.

She expects one thing (prison, four walls, the floor, the ceiling, and growing old there) and gets the exact opposite (released from custody, to serve the remainder of her term--). 

Later, she’ll find out that Wash went to bat on her behalf. Why, why, she doesn’t know, no matter how many times she tries to think it over. He had no reason to, he had no goddamn reason to ever do anything like that, but he does, and two hearings later, she’s got a tracking band strapped around her ankle, and she’s just standing at the door, breathing unevenly and trying to will herself to open it.

“Here.”

Sometimes, she thinks she hates him, more than anything else. He doesn’t even say anything, doesn’t ever indicate that he pities her, doesn’t do anything but be helpful, be a nice guy, and it infuriates her just as much as it ever has. She doesn’t need someone to be nice to her, she doesn’t want him to baby her.

Wash pushes the door open, and presses a hand to her shoulder, gently, and she’s hit with sunlight and fresh air so intense that she just stops all over again, breathing in deep and fast and finding goosebumps rising on her skin.

Freedom isn’t a word she thought she’d hear, not any time soon, but she can’t help but be some kind of relieved, taking each stair step by step until she and Wash are at the bottom, and she realizes that she doesn’t have anything. No clothing past this, no way to get around, no card to access her credits, no idea where anything is, no idea how to get anywhere. She has money, of course- she stashed away a great deal from Freelancer and while some of it had been used in the trials, she still had something left over that she could access, but finding a place to do that and then figuring out what came next? That was the hard part.

Her hands clench into fists, squinting at the street for a moment as she tries to work out what to do first, and Wash’s large hand on her shoulder makes her tense. “You can go any time, boyscout. I don’t need a buddy to cross the street.”

Once, she knew that would have been enough to scare him off with a mumbled excuse and level of awkwardness that only Wash could achieve at times. Now, though, Wash just squeezes her shoulder, and walks her to the parking lot, where he motions to a car that she realizes is his. “I’m kind of responsible for you,” Wash says, his tone faintly amused as he presses a hand to the top of his car, opening the door for her. “I’ll help you get settled.”

Some small part of her wants to tell him no-- she wants to tell him that she’s not his responsibility, she’s not some puppy that he adopted and that he has to take care of, she can take care of her own _goddamn self_ , but the words just don’t come out and instead, she presses her lips into a thin line and sits in the car stiffly, waiting for him to get in on the other side.

___________________

The first thing Wash does is take her to lunch.

She doesn’t ask for it- she doesn’t want to, but he suggests it and doesn’t wait for a response, before pulling into a seafood chain that she didn’t think she’d ever see again. Some part of her wants to ask how he knew, but she probably doesn’t want to know, so she just gets out of the car and crosses her arms.

“You know I’m not exactly rolling in money,” CT says, following him in, giving him a dirty look when he opens the door for her. Her leg twinges faintly, but she doesn’t pay any attention to it, just letting the waitress seat them.

It’s the first real food she’s had in what feels like forever.

After food comes clothing; he sets her loose in the store, because he has no idea what to buy or how to even figure out what sizes she wears. After a few moments of trailing her around the store, he realizes that she doesn’t either. They make do, though; CT finds a few pairs of jeans and simple shirts, along with underthings, and Wash pays for them before she can even object.

A haircut comes next-- she hadn’t ever trusted anyone at the prison to do it, which meant that it was longer than she had ever had it before. Wash just waits patiently, skimming through a magazine while CT glances at the hairdresser, and says with all the finality in the world, _“Short.”_

___________________

The longer this goes on, the more she feels like some sort of pet that he’s getting all sorts of things for. She realizes that she owes him for it, but that doesn’t make her feel any better, because owing people favors is one of the worst things to happen.

From what she was told, they hadn’t been able to ever prove directly that she’d had as much of a hand in the Insurrectionist activity as the others had. And from what had been brought up-- she’d tried to stop the latest series of events. It wasn’t entirely out of the goodness of her heart, but it was enough, apparently, with Washington’s backing. She doesn’t know what to make of the fact that he had enough sway there, apparently, but she doesn’t want to ask, either.

All that matters right then is the fact that she was released. Everything else can get figured out later.

___________________

Somehow, Wash convinces her to come home with him until she gets things settled. He has a spare room, he says, it’s quiet, it’s nice, and it’ll give her time to figure out what she’s doing. She’s already been made aware of what she has to do in order to keep out of trouble-- four years of checking in with an officer who makes sure she doesn’t have any ties to any groups that could cause trouble.

In the grand scheme of things, it’s not that bad of an option. It’s not perfect, but she can do it.

They do end up at Washington’s apartment-- a place that seems too big for one person, but she doesn’t question it. He doesn’t seem like the type to even have roommates, not that she feels she knows him all that well after all these years. As she hefts up the bag of clothing he’d gotten her when they had stopped for something for her to wear, he lets her inside and then locks the door behind them, stopping there awkwardly.

“It’s-- uh. It’s a work in progress,” Wash says almost sheepishly, toeing his shoes off and brushing past her to the kitchen that’s just down the hall. CT doesn’t say anything in response at first, she just follows him in, kind of in disbelief that he got such a large place but there’s...nothing in it. He has furniture-- new, like he only just unwrapped the plastic off of it and just set it there. There aren’t dishes anywhere, the remote for the TV is sitting on an equally new looking coffee table.

It looks like a house you tour to see if you want to buy one similar and it’s a little unsettling, if she’s being honest.

“Here- I-- lemme help you with--” Wash starts, and tries to take the bag, aborting the motion just as soon as CT gives him a long look, and holds it all the tighter. “--help you with showing you that room.”

___________________

She ends up staying over a month, not that she expects to.

Adjusting harder than she expects, and she finds that finding a place, getting settled-- all of those things that normal people do are harder than she ever really thought they would be. She doesn’t like being dependent on someone, she doesn’t like that she has to do this, but there aren’t many other options.

Worse still is the fact that Wash keeps watching her, keeps being careful around her, keeps being the _goddamn boyscout,_ and it’s fine the first week or two, but by the end of the month she wants to just scream at him. Doesn’t he remember she almost got all of them killed?

He doesn’t seem to care, though, or he’s just too dumb to register it; she’s not sure which option it is. Either way, he comes home with dinner some nights, and goes over job listings in the paper with her, picking up fliers on his way around town for help wanted, laughing when she gives him a dirty look at one of them.

“I am not. Going to babysit.”

Wash laughs, loudly, and goes to get their dinner out of the oven.

He can’t cook, never learned and never cared to, but they live mostly on oven-ready food or take-out that he grabs on his way home, or that she remembers to when she’s out looking for jobs or things to do. It’s not perfect, but it works, and she finds she’s more unsettled by the fact that she’s actually growing comfortable, like this. She’s bored out of her mind most of the time and she wants to find something to do to keep from going nuts just like she did in prison, but here-- well, she finds things.

Eventually, she does find a job, a bank, and all of the things that normal people do and while she finds it awkward, she can at least manage it.

It’s not perfect, but it’s something.

___________________

“What happened to the others,” CT asks one night, her legs sprawled across Wash’s lap while he kicks his feet up on his coffee table, and watches the game. She doesn’t care too much about football, but Wash has grown a little more fond of it the more he sees it on, and every so often, he makes an attempt to watch his team play.

It’s impossible to miss the way Wash tenses, just focusing on the television all the harder. She hasn’t ever asked, hasn’t ever brought up the fact that he goes to work, and doesn’t talk about it, that he has this house, and all these things, and yet she can’t figure out just how. She knows not everything is right, though; she wakes up in the middle of the night to Wash pacing the halls like a ghost, heading out to his deck and just standing there for hours on end, before going back inside.

He hasn’t ever asked that she leaves, either, which is just weird to her, but she’s not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, not right now.

CT shifts, prodding his arm with her toes, and gets no response, so she leans up and grabs the remote, turning the TV off.

“I said, what happened. I’m not an idiot, Wash- you aren’t rich, at least you weren’t back then. I don’t ever see any of the others, but--”

“You got arrested.” Wash interrupts her before she can go any further, just glancing over at her, his fingers easing over her ankles, toying with a few loose threads on the edges of her pants. “You got arrested and taken away. The rest of us that came back when everything was over, were all labeled war heroes. It’s part of why it was easier to get you out. Carolina’s still in the military, along with some of the others-- North, Iowa. I don’t think she can ever quit that, not right now. York’s-- last I heard he got married, had a kid. White picket fence. South and Maine died a few years back on a mission. Wyoming left after the war was over, I haven’t heard from him since.”

Somehow, none of that surprises her. Carolina being out of the military just isn’t something that she could ever picture; North and Iowa she could, under certain circumstances. York-- kids and a wife, yeah, she could easily see that, since that was all he talked about sometimes. The fact that it’s not with Carolina, though, that much is a surprise. South and Maine-- well, she wasn’t too attached to either of them, the same with Wyoming, but she imagines that North was a wreck afterward.

“And you?” CT lifts her chin, just looking at him, frowning. “What do you do?”

The look on his face is unsettling, that’s the only word for it. He’s not the same Wash that she remembers from back then-- he’s quieter, more serious, and -- off. There’s no other way to put it. It’s nothing like when Epsilon had been in his head and he started to come apart at the seams, but it’s still not quite right. She can’t put her thumb on it, not really, but all the little things keep adding up but not making sense.

“It’s getting late.”

Wash pushes her feet off of his lap, gently, the game entirely forgotten as he stands up and fishes his glasses off of the table, sliding them onto his nose with a sigh. “I’ll clean up in the morning. I’m gonna go to bed.”

Part of her wants to argue-- to demand that he tell her why he never talks about work, never talks about any of that, but she doesn’t, she just presses her lips in a thin line and stretches out on the couch once he’s gone, falling asleep there a few hours later.


End file.
